Her mission: an image for every name on Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Every day Janna Hoehn searches phone books, online data bases, high school yearbooks and archived obituaries for clues on biographical information of names etched on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial black granite in Washington D.C. She's hoping to find relatives of the fallen warriors and get photographs to match up with their names.FILE: KRYSTLE MARCELLUS, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

How to help

Photos for the Wall of Faces can be sent to Hoehn at neverforgotten2014@gmail.com.

More information about the Wall of Faces, Education Center or Wall That Heals at vvmf.org.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Founded by: Jan Scruggs, Vietnam veteran who served and was injured in 1969

Names on wall: 58,221

Missing in Action: 1,400

Dedicated in: 1982

Cost: $84 million

Designed by: Maya Lin

Gregory John Crossman started it all.

His name, engraved in black granite on a short part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the National Mall in Washington D.C., was the trigger that set Janna Hoehn on her life's mission.

Crossman was an Army sergeant shot down over Vietnam on April 25, 1968. He and his partner never have been found.

Hoehn, formerly of Hemet, picked his name off the memorial during a visit there with her husband five years ago – in part because he had a cross by his name, which means the person is missing in action. Hoehn rubbed over his engraved name to make a stencil, but then wanted to know more: Where was he from? What did he look like? Where is his family?

The quest for details about Crossman led Hoehn, who now lives in Maui, to try to connect the names of hundreds of fallen Vietnam service members to their faces. Her mission has consumed her while giving renewed life to the memories of hundreds of service members.

Every day, Hoehn searches phone books, online databases, high school yearbooks and archived obituaries for biographical information of names she has taken off the Vietnam War Memorial. Each clue leads her closer to finding relatives of the fallen warriors and, with that, photographs to match with their names.

Those photographs will become part of the Wall of Faces, an online memorial with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. The Wall of Faces exhibit also will be included in a new center that will house historical information on the war and the military personnel who fought there.

The Education Center will be built underground in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial and adjacent to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In 2003, President George W. Bush gave authorization to build the center, where the recovered photographs will become larger-than-life displays in memory of the fallen. Their photos and stories will appear as part of a daily slideshow on the birth date of the casualty. Photos of fallen service members from Iraq and Afghanistan also will be included. The center is expected to cost $110 million. So far $27 million has been raised.

As of this week, the memorial fund has nearly 34,000 pictures of fallen soldiers, all of which can be viewed on the online memorial.

In Orange County, Hoehn is looking to connect 134 names with faces.

In Los Angeles County her task is more daunting: nearly 1,000 names need photos to accompany them.

In the past three years, her quest has led her to recover 549 photographs.

“When you put a face with a name, it completely changes the dynamics of the wall,” Hoehn said. “You see a real person and you tell their story. It's really dramatic and powerful.”

While her fascination with finding the faces for the names began with the visit to the memorial five years ago, Hoehn for decades had been bothered by the memories of what happened to Vietnam vets who came home.

As a girl growing up in Hemet, she remembered seeing how they were treated, and how returning veterans had to deal with negative public perception.

Every day Janna Hoehn searches phone books, online data bases, high school yearbooks and archived obituaries for clues on biographical information of names etched on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial black granite in Washington D.C. She's hoping to find relatives of the fallen warriors and get photographs to match up with their names. FILE: KRYSTLE MARCELLUS, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
For the last three years Janna Hoehn has been on an unending quest to connect the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to faces. In that time she has recovered 549 photographs, including this image of CEW3 John Henry Gilliland III who is honored on Panel 27E, Row 71 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. FILE PHOTO
For the last three years Janna Hoehn has been on an unending quest to connect the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to faces. In that time she has recovered 549 photographs, including this image of Captain Gus Blakely Robinson who is honored on Panel 12W, Row 128 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. FILE PHOTO
For the last three years Janna Hoehn has been on an unending quest to connect the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to faces. In that time she has recovered 549 photographs, including this image of SP4 Joseph Patrick Pink who is honored on Panel 28E, Row 56 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. FILE PHOTO
Every day Janna Hoehn searches phone books, online data bases, high school yearbooks and archived obituaries for clues on biographical information of names etched on the Vietnam War Memorial black granite in Washington D.C. She's hoping to find relatives of the fallen warriors and get photographs to match up with their names. FILE: KRYSTLE MARCELLUS, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
A rose left by a visitor lies against the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Janna Hoehn's fascination with finding the faces for the names began when she and her husband visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial five years ago. FILE PHOTO

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